


Stars and Snowflakes

by Piscaria



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/pseuds/Piscaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek disappears from the pack's bonfire. Stiles is the only one who realizes why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars and Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jsea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsea/gifts).



> I owed Jsea a drabble because she kicked my ass in a word war. I can't write short things to save my life, so she ended up with this instead.

Stiles turned his face to the fire and closed his eyes, letting the warmth wash over him. The air smelled like wood smoke and spruce trees, like the snowflakes drifting over their heads and shoulders. Stiles’s back was cold from the winter air, but his front was warm from the bonfire, and his mittened hands were downright toasty, clutched around the thermos of hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps. 

Not for the first time, Stiles thanked every god he knew for the birth of Lydia Martin. Once they’d buried the last of the Alpha Pack beneath the wolfsbane Derek insisted on (a circle of wolfsbane this time not a spiral like Stiles and Scott had found around Laura’s grave; Derek said that spirals were for vengeance, but circles were for closure), Lydia had looked at their tired and bloody faces, tossed her hair, and announced they were going on vacation. Two weeks later, here they were, at the cabin Lydia’s father kept in the mountains. Lydia was a genius.

Scott sat on the log beside Stiles, Isaac pressed close against his other side, and both of them having an animated conversation with a clearly tipsy Allison, who kept giggling the way she used to when she first moved to Beacon Hills. Lydia and Jackson lay on their backs in the snow, Lydia’s head pillowed on Jackson’s chest. He was pointing out constellations, and she was pretending to be impressed, though Stiles knew for a fact that she’d written a report about them in fifth grade. Boyd and Erica cuddled beneath a blanket on another log, passing a thermos of hot cocoa between them. Peter had disappeared into the cabin when his cell phone rang twenty minutes ago, and from the way his face had softened when he said hello, Stiles knew he was talking to Scott’s mom. And Derek . . . . Stiles frowned and sat up straighter, realizing for the first time that he hadn’t seen Derek since they’d lit the bonfire almost an hour ago. Since they’d . . . oh shit.

“Are you okay?” Scott asked, as Stiles surged to his feet. 

“Who, me?” Stiles asked. “Yeah, man, I’m fine. I’ve got to –“ he made a vague gesture towards the woods. Scott shrugged, looped an arm around Isaac’s shoulders, and turned back to Allison. Sometimes, Stiles honestly couldn’t tell which of them he was dating. 

Normally, Stiles would put “tracking an Alpha werewolf” onto the list of things that were futile for mere humans to attempt. But it had been snowing all afternoon, and when Stiles reached the spot where he’d last seen Derek lurking, it was easy enough to follow the set of footprints leading into the woods. A few feet into the trees, he had to pull out his phone to light the ground, but even then, Derek’s footprints stood out clearly against the fresh blanket of snow. Stiles followed them deep into the woods, where they looped around a cedar, and disappeared.

Frowning, Stiles looked at the ground, then up at the tree, wondering if Derek had climbed it, and, if so, how? The nearest branch was about twelve feet up. An Alpha might be able to jump it, Stiles supposed, or maybe Derek had just dug his claws into the bark. Stiles was cleaning close to examine the trunk with his phone when a hand fell on his shoulder.

Stiles yelped and flailed, sending both cell phone and thermos flying. Because he was a sneaky and insufferable Alpha werewolf with impossible reflexes, Derek plucked them both out of air.

“What are you doing?” he asked, tossing the phone back to Stiles, and twisting the top off the thermos. He sniffed it before taking a long sip. His fingers were slightly red against the steel, because of course Derek Hale hadn’t bothered with gloves, or a hat. In fact, the only concession he’d made to the weather, as far as Stiles could see, was the sweater he wore beneath his leather jacket instead of his usual t-shirt or Henley. Somehow, he looked even more ridiculously attractive with his cheeks and nose reddened from the cold. Snow flattened the spikes of Derek’s hair, and Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to do something suicidal, like brush it off. 

“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t been eaten by a bear,” Stiles said, and Derek snorted.

“Bears hibernate,” he said, helping himself to another sip of Stiles’s cocoa.

“I know!” Stiles said, and, since Derek didn’t look inclined to relinquish the thermos any time soon, he added, “Give me that!” 

While tracking Derek, Stiles had been forced to shove his mittens into his pockets so he could operate the touch screen on his phone. So when their fingers brushed as Derek returned the thermos, Stiles could feel the slight chill of Derek’s skin against his own. For a werewolf, he had to be freezing. Sighing, Stiles took one last sip of cocoa – his delicious, peppermint-spiked cocoa – and reluctantly handed it back to Derek. Eyebrows lifting in surprise, Derek accepted it back, his fingers curling around it for warmth. 

“What were you doing out here?” Stiles asked.

Derek shrugged, in an answer Stiles interpreted to mean, “moping.” And fine, Stiles could deal with that. Stiles had it on good authority from both his dad and Scott that he was an _excellent_ moper. Leaning back against the tree trunk, releasing a tiny shower of snow as he did so, Stiles crossed his arms over his chest. Derek watched him for a second, clearly suspicious, before his features softened minutely, and he sighed. The tree was small enough that, when Derek crossed to lean against the other side of the trunk, his shoulders and elbows bumped against Stiles’s. 

An owl hooted somewhere overhead. Far in the distance, Stiles heard a peal of laughter from the bonfire. Erica’s voice, he thought, or maybe Allison’s. Derek would know. The air smelled less of smoke out here, and more of pine and the faint, spicy scent of leather and musk that had to be Derek. It was strangely companionable leaning back-to-back like this, with only a tree trunk between them. Stiles tipped his head back, looking up at the sky.

“You can see Orion,” he said, and Derek hummed agreeably.

Snow was still falling, and Stiles felt almost dizzy looking up at it. He’d grown colder, standing there without moving, and he shivered a little. Derek noticed.

“You should go be with your friends,” he said.

Stiles swallowed. Knocked his shoulder back against Derek’s. “I am,” he admitted.

Derek didn’t say anything. But the weight leaning against Stiles’s back and shoulders suddenly disappeared. Stiles turned his head to watch as Derek stepped around the tree to stand beside Stiles, a long line of warmth against his side. He wordlessly offered the thermos to Stiles, who drank, painfully aware that Derek’s lips had been on the mouth of the thermos just minutes before. Their fingers brushed again when he handed the thermos back to Derek. This time, the shiver passing through Stiles’s body had nothing to do with cold. He wondered if Derek could somehow taste his mouth, second-hand, through the thermos. He wondered what he smelled like to Derek. 

Elbowing Stiles gently in the side, Derek pointed up at the sky. Stiles followed his finger up to a cluster of stars behind Orion’s belt. “Do you know that one?” Derek asked.

Stiles nodded. “Canis Minor.” He lifted his own hand, pointing out another constellation. “And that’s Canis Major.” 

“We called Orion the Hunter,” Derek said quietly. “And those two Lupus Major and Minor. My dad said the Hunter had killed a member of their pack, and they were chasing him through the sky in revenge.”

Stiles swallowed. He hadn’t ever heard Derek voluntarily talk about his family before. “We used to go on midnight hikes in the woods,” he said. “Back when Mom was still alive. She’d pack thermoses of cocoa, and cookies, and strings of cranberries and popcorn balls to leave in the trees for the birds.” 

To his surprise, Derek laughed, throwing his head back. Stiles watched the way his eyes crinkled, the flash of his teeth, and felt something twisting painfully inside his stomach. He wondered if Derek had laughed like this before the fire. 

“What is it?” he asked, and Derek shook his head, still chuckling.

“It’s just,” he swallowed, and his face looked suddenly sad. “I always used to wonder who decorated the trees every year,” Derek said, looking at the ground. “Laura told me some bullshit story about fairies, but I could _smell_ that it was humans. Mom never let me stay up to figure out who it was.” 

Stiles shifted his weight to lean against him, relieved when Derek didn’t shove him away. “I guess I never realized that was your land we were on,” he said, wondering what Derek had been like when he was younger. Stiles’s mom had died when he was seven. That would make Derek – what? Fourteen? A year before the fire. 

Derek shrugged. “The Nature Conservancy butts right up against the property line. It’s easy to cross over if you don’t know what you’re looking for.” 

The silence that settled between them was heavier than before, weighted down with old sorrows. Stiles shivered when a cold breeze started. To his surprise, Derek wrapped an arm around his shoulders, tugging him closer. 

“We should get you back,” Derek murmured, still looking up at the stars. “It’s cold.” But he made no move to release him, and Stiles only burrowed closer, daring to loop an arm around Derek’s waist in return. He felt suddenly small amidst the towering trees, with snowflakes falling around them and a sea of stars overhead. It felt heady, almost terrifying, like the heavy weight of Derek’s arm over his shoulders, the warmth of Derek’s body against his side. Stiles pressed his face into Derek’s shoulder, wanting to burrow in against him, to wrap himself around Derek like the moss clinging to the tree trunks and never, ever let him go. For a second, Derek rested his cheek against the top of Stiles’s head and breathed in deeply. Stiles wondered if he could smell anything beside the wet wool of the cap Erica had kit for him.

Derek stiffened suddenly, and after a moment, Stiles heard it too, voices in the distance, growing closer. 

“They’re looking for you,” Derek said, reluctantly pulling away from Stiles. 

“Looking for us,” Stiles corrected, and Derek froze, one hand still on Stiles’s shoulder. Stiles swallowed at his expression – he’d always secretly loved the gray-green of Derek’s eyes, like agate. But now they were wide, bright with some emotion Stiles couldn’t name. It was hypnotic. Stiles couldn’t look away if he wanted to. Derek’s gaze flicked to Stiles’s mouth, then back to his eyes. Stiles bit his lip, heart hammering in his chest as Derek gave a little nod, as though he’d come to a decision. Then Derek’s cool fingers shifted from Stiles’s shoulder to his cheek, and Derek was kissing him.

It was fast, just a scrape of stubble and a warm, wet pressure against Stiles’s lips, slightly sticky from the cocoa. Stiles tried to chase after Derek’s mouth as it retreated, but Derek only smiled, pecking a quick kiss against Stiles’s chilled nose before pulling away entirely. He started back down the path towards the cabin without looking back.

Blinking snowflakes out of his eyelashes, Stiles touched a finger to his lips and laughed, hearing the sound echo through the forest. Derek was still walking away, his hands in his pockets, the set of his shoulders impossibly smug. Stiles picked up the thermos where it had fallen in the snow, and bounded after him.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated.


End file.
